#false-confessions

#false-confessions

A confession is often seen as the gold standard of evidence in a criminal case, leading to guilty verdicts even when there is no other evidence, when there's a reason to think the confession was involuntary, and even when other evidence like DNA contradicts the story in the confession. Throughout the last four or five decades, scientists have learned a lot about the psychology of interrogations and confessions.

Thomas' sister, Eliza Thomas, was 17 years old when she was murdered alongside three other teenage girls-13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison, and Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah-in Austin, Texas, in 1991. To be fair, Sonora was only 13 when her sister was murdered, and her family, burdened by grief, never openly talked about what happened to Eliza. Still, memory, as Brown expertly captures in his series, is a really tricky thing.